KINGWELL, Mark (Gerald) 1963-

PERSONAL: Born 1963, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; married. Education: University of Toronto, B.A. (high distinction), 1985; Edinburgh University, M.Litt., 1987; Yale University, M.Phil., 1989, Ph.D., 1991.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Trinity College, University of Toronto, Department of Philosophy, Gerald Larkin Bldg., 15 Devonshire Place, Room 309, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1A3; fax: 416-978-4949.

CAREER: Writer. University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, professor of philosophy. Visiting professor at Cambridge University, City University of New York, and University of California at Berkeley. Member of advisory board, Foundation for Ethics and Meaning, New York, NY.

MEMBER: Institute for Contemporary Culture, Royal Ontario Museum (chair).

AWARDS, HONORS: Spitz Prize for political theory, 1996, for A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism; Governor-General's Award for nonfiction, 1998, for Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac; honorary doctorate, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2000.

WRITINGS:

A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics ofPluralism, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1995.

Dreams of Millennium: Report from a Culture on theBrink, Faber and Faber (Boston, MA), 1997.

Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato toProzac, Viking (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998, published as In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living, from Plato to Prozac, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Christopher Moore) Canada: Our Century—100Voices, 500 Visions, Doubleday Canada (Toronto, Canada), 1999.

Marginalia: A Cultural Reader, Penguin Group Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1999.

The World We Want: Virtue, Vice, and the GoodCitizen, Viking (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000, published as The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age, Rowman and Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2001.

Practical Judgments: Essays in Culture, Politics, andInterpretation, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning ofLife, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

Also contributor to numerous popular and academic journals, including Utne Reader, New York Times Magazine, American Scholar, and Journal of Philosophy. Contributing editor for Harper's, This, and Descant; columnist for National Post. Member of advisory board for Queen's Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: A cultural theorist and philosopher, Mark Kingwell has written on civility in public life, millennial hopes and dreams, the pursuit of personal and national happiness, and the philosophical implications of trout fishing. He has also coauthored the bestselling photographic history Canada: Our Century—100 Voices, 500 Visions, and his writings on culture have appeared in influential magazines throughout North America, particularly in Harper's, where he is a contributing editor.

In A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, Kingwell urges two dispositions to ensure overall peace in diverse societies. The first is refraining from saying everything you might, just as you would not purposely insult a hostess's outfit out of some abstract devotion to truth. The second is reciprocity—listening with sensitivity as well as talking. In the public sphere these might involve keeping some moral "truths" to ourselves rather than insulting or antagonizing groups of people that do not share our assumptions. It would also involve trying to understand opponents rather than simply dismiss them or caricature their arguments. Throughout A Civil Tongue, Kingwell takes a largely pragmatic approach to these questions. As Simone Chambers noted in the American Political Science Review, "Civility is not defended on the grounds that we owe it (in some moral sense) to our fellow citizens. Instead, it is defended as the instrumental means to peaceful coexistence, something it is assumed we all want."

In the late 1990s, Kingwell focused on a new theme in the public discourse: the fears and hopes for the coming century. Dreams of Millennium: Report from a Culture on the Brink draws on history, philosophy, and cultural theory to examine the UFO sightings, apocalyptic cults and acts (such as the Waco tragedy), the popularity of the television show X-Files, and other manifestations of tension as the world approached a new millennium. Probing beneath the service, Kingwell concluded that there was a growing fear that the world was dividing between a "cognitive elite" and a mass of wage slaves. In the end, summarized a Publishers Weekly reviewer, the author's "skeptical report offers no reassuring predictions and is spiked with unsettling insights on nearly every page."

Kingwell is somewhat more optimistic in Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac but only after rejecting what he sees as many false routes to happiness. In addition to critiquing the views of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the human potential movement, Kingwell tries Prozac—without a prescription—takes a self-actualization course at the Option Institute, and confronts the ubiquity of therapy and psychiatric treatments. He even tries stealing and lying, just to see if they really do provide some sort of hedonistic pleasure. In addition, Kingwell takes on the culture's obsession with materialism, and for a Maclean's reviewer the author "is at his best dissecting the role of advertising in driving consumer overspending." By the end of Better Living, Kingwell opts for the ancient answer that the virtuous life is also the most satisfying and ultimately pleasurable. A Time International contributor found that the book, "by turns annoying, tedious and stimulating, offers readers an intellectual bus tour of today and the ages." Booklist reviewer GraceAnne A. DeCandido felt that "if there is a point to having Ph.D. programs produce philosophers, it might just be books like this."

Kingwell extends his conclusions to the political sphere in The World We Want: Virtue, Vice, and the Good Citizen. Worried that consumerism is shouldering out political commitment, particularly among the young, Kingwell attempts to instill a new sense of dedication to citizenship, drawing on various political philosophers and examples such as Socrates' preference for death over banishment from his native city. For him, ethics and a strong commitment to justice lie at the heart of politics. "While the author makes his case well, the book is not simple reading," noted Library Journal contributor Deborah Bigelow.

In a more personal vein, Kingwell uses a family fishing trip as a starting point for a number of philosophical speculations. Catch and Release: Trout Fishingand the Meaning of Life recounts Kingwell's introduction to fly fishing by his father and brothers, and his ultimate embrace of angling. For a Publishers Weekly contributor, Kingwell's "thoughts on the oft-written-about sport stick to the ABCs, but are filled with a sense of joy and awe." Along the way, the author provides a number of musings on the inherent nature and purpose of various aspects of fishing, including patience, sportsmanship, and the appreciation of nature, as well as humorous family anecdotes to lighten the tone. "Funny, irreverent, and provocative, this is a book anglers, as well as others, will cherish," concluded Library Journal reviewer Jim Casada.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, December, 1995, Simone Chambers, review of A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, p. 1015.

Booklist, June 1, 2000, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living, from Plato to Prozac, p. 1803.

Canadian Geographic, January, 2000, Jeanie MacFarlane, "Reflections on a Nation's Coming of Age," p. 72.

Chatelaine, July, 1998, Judith Timson, review of InPursuit of Happiness, p.30.

Library Journal, May 15, 1997, John Moryl, review of Dreams of Millennium: Report from a Culture on the Brink, p. 81; October 1, 2000, review of In Pursuit of Happiness, p. 104; March 1, 2002, Deborah Bigelow, review of The World We Want: Virtue, Vice, and the Good Citizen, p. 126; April 15, 2004, review of Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life, p. 93.

Maclean's, June 17, 1996, Lawrence Scanlan, review of Dreams of Millennium, p. 52; May 11, 1998, "Do Worry, Be Happy: An Author Argues That Contentment Takes Work," p. 55; December 4, 2000, John Bemrose, review of The World We Want, p. 81.

Publishers Weekly, January 20, 1997, review of Dreams of Millennium, p. 386; June 5, 2000, review of In Pursuit of Happiness, p. 81; March 22, 2004, review of Catch and Release, p. 70.

Resource Links, February, 2000, review of Canada:Our Century—100 Voices, 500 Visions, p. 42.

This Magazine, September-October, 2004, Andrew Potter, review of Catch and Release, p. 42.

Time International, June 22, 1998, "Magical Mystery Tour," p. 57.

Wilson Quarterly, winter, 2001, "Growing Attached," p. 11.

ONLINE

International Speakers Bureau Web site,http://www.internationalspeakers.com/ (October 14, 2004), "Mark Kingwell."

Lavin Agency Web site,http://www.thelavinagency.com/canada/ (October 14, 2004), "Mark Kingwell."

University of Toronto, Philosophy Department Web site,http://philosophy.utoronto.ca/ (October 14, 2004), "Mark Kingwell."

Varsity Review Online,http://varsity.utoronto.ca/ (October 14, 2004), John Sinopoli, "The World We Want: Mark Kingwell Talks about His Latest Endeavor."*